Trista Russell

Lots of trigger warnings ahead. This is one of the long one-star reviews.
TW: misogyny; homophobia; biphobia; a sexual predator outs her boss as fucking his male subordinate/her coworker to deflect from the fact that she's fucking a student; domestic violence; severe anti-choice statements; minor character deaths; marital sexual assault via drugging and forcing a spouse to consent to sex acts; cheating; dub-con scenes with no warning or safeword; sexual harrassment; various sexually predatory behaviors; weird racial undertones I probably won't explain well

I first read this when it came out and I was going through a huge teacher/student erotica phase. Fanfiction or published original fiction, I couldn't get enough. Wrote plenty of my own teacher-student fanfiction that I was really proud of. I've left it up all these years so yeah, still okay with the fanfics. I remember thinking this book had some incredibly stupid parts in it with awful messages about gay people. Thirteen years later, I wanted to know how I'd receive it. It was much worse now that I'm a more critical reader. There are -so- many other erotic books and fanfiction that are better structured with hotter scenes. The title and framing of this book--that a fly on the wall sees all the sex--is completely pointless. It takes away from the immediacy of the scenes, tries to be a minor character but is really pointless, and is a bucket of cold water on most people's libido unless they are into imagining insects. This has been categorized as a romance but it's really not at all. It's poorly-structured erotica.

This book...satirizes sex. I can't describe it any other way. People with sex drives are mocked, and people without them aren't even mentioned. Everyone is a wind-up orgasm machine in this. Nobody cares about anything except their next orgasm. Every man in this is creepy and borderline rapey towards Paige, and she convinces herself she's fine. The first two men we meet who are examples of this are a bisexual man who Paige goes back and forth on whether she should flirt, and her ex-husband who she's still sleeping with. The reason I wrote that sentence that way was because that's allll Paige sees them as. How they relate to her sexually. Theo sees girls and women this way too. So, Paige goes from "huh, should I flirt with my gym buddy?" right into "wham! ask him on a date!" and then "boom! ask him for sex!" within five pages as he's creepy towards her. In another book, I'd buy that she was trying to exert some control over a sexually creepy situation by being even more forward, but uh...the author can't pull it off.

Dorian, the gym buddy, goes with Paige to a party with a few other couples. It's practically an orgy but with everyone at least partially clothed. Paige insists she has no problem with gay men, but she's a raging homophobe and biphobe, as evidenced in the next paragraphs. The straight couples are groping and drooling, yet the one gay couple is demonized for doing exactly what the straights are. pressures Paige to go back to his apartment, and I think this was common to 2009 romances and I just forgot. Aged so poorly! So he's revealed to be bisexual and lies to Paige about his boyfriend, and then his boyfriend beats him up. There is no buildup or warning for a lot of incredibly serious issues raised in this book, and I hate it. The issues are always, always ignored by the next two paragraphs because either Theo or Paige are having orgasms or thinking about it.

There are weird racial undertones in this. Lighter skin is prized, as is straighter, longer hair, among other things. Everyone's body is described like food. Caramel fingers, hunks of meat as a descriptor for penis or entire body, stuff like that. This book has the tropes, descriptions and structures that I'm used to seeing in bad romances, particularly bad fanfiction. I read and write a lot of it, so I am going to point it out as such. A professional editor should have caught and restructured the whole thing. Is the fly on the wall a self-insert of some kind? It's self-congratulatory of the author in any case. "Look at how great the porn I'm writing is!" No.

Everyone with a penis is desperate for Paige, and she both despises and pardons herself for sleeping with any penis-haver who asks. Choose a worldview on sexual behavior and stick to it! The author was trying so hard to have Paige be conflicted, but is horrible at writing it. Or she could have had both by fleshing Paige out and explaining -why- Paige both despised and pardoned herself for sleeping with men in various relationship situations (married, single, lying).

Toni is drugged by her husband when she tells him she's reluctant for group sex. She cannot consent to these acts due to the drugs in her system. The author firmly believes "it's not rape if you enjoyed it." My skin is crawling just typing that. Paige legit refers to a high school student as her "nemesis" because the high school student is flirting hardcore with another high school student, who Paige considers to be her boyfriend. Nemesis...is a Greek goddess who seeks justice/revenge against wrongdoers who receive good things and their bad deeds are overlooked. Theo is the good thing Paige feels entitled to. Angie is the perceived wrongdoer for...being the same age as Theo and sexually pursuing him. I realize "nemesis" is now a watered-down term for "enemy," but both definitions when a thirty-two-year-old uses them against a -high school senior- are just indicative of how awful Paige is.

Every person who isn't Paige or Theo is crass, inconsiderate, and petulant in order to make Paige and Theo look good by comparison. Every adult in this book constantly giggles. It's odd, annoying, and pointless. Seventy-five pages from the end, a tragedy happens because the author needed this particular character out of the story. Why? The character was enabling Paige, which is exactly what Paige expected. Maybe there was a need for drama. In another book, this would have been so sad. Here, it's jarring. Theo freaks out that another man is comforting Paige at the funeral. This is the dead character's brother, jackass! Unlike everyone else in this book, he's not gonna drool and paw at her, nor snarl at you. Sit down. This is not about you. There's a dub-con scene the author probably thought was kinky but came across as creepy, and another that's arguably a rape scene. There's no foreshadowing or discussion about boundaries. There's extreme anti-choice messages in here, too, and it's sooo frustrating.

The author expects me to believe Paige and Theo are in love. Why? It's never shown. They're wind-up orgasm machines. Fucking, wanting to fuck, jealousy, and jealousy resolved by fucking is all this book is. It needed to be two hundred pages shorter, the characters needed to be way more fleshed out and interact much more frequently outside of fucking or talking about fucking, and it would have been nice to have a little more plot.

This book has a lot of themes that are poorly done. "The Boss" series by Abigail Barnette has a few of them as well, but does them right. "The Boss" is an erotic romance with an age gap and a boss/employee dynamic, and the first book is a free ebook. The series addresses pregnancy and abortion in a totally different way than here. There are minor character deaths much further along in the series (book seven, I think), and those are actually addressed with the sensitivity they deserve, unlike here. Friendships are solid in this series, and while they do talk about sex, it's certainly not the only thing they talk about. "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" by Jenny Trout is also an erotic romance but it's much, much shorter. Not a single word is wasted. The structure is much better. The sex scenes are transitioned to and feel natural. Safewords are discussed and used. Jealousy and conflict are factors, but the characters think and talk about why and how they're feeling, and acknowledge they're unhappy to feel this way. Skip this book and read those instead.… (lisätietoja)

I've read this book about 2 years ago but as far as I can remember it was a really good book. It was about a girl name Sarai Emery who lost her job as a disc jockey due to the fact she was arguing with her boyfriend on the radio and things got very heated. She couldn't pay her pills or support her father that was very sick so she had to find a way to make money else where. She became an escort and during that time she meet someone that she saw a future with. He knew she lost her job and had been checking her out. She has been contemplating whether or not should she come clean about how she's really getting her money. I don't want to tell to much of the story but it is a very good read. I recommend reading other books from this author as well.… (lisätietoja)